King of the Air Part 8

"Why worse, Tim?" asked Mr. Greatorex.

"'Cos we're lookin' on, sir," said Tim solemnly, and felt much hurt by the burst of laughter with which his explanation was received.

But his anxiety was a vain expenditure of energy. With the vertical screws at full speed, and the horizontal screws half speed, the machine rose like a huge bird from the deck, with a noise like the clattering of hundreds of bats and the humming of innumerable bees. At the height of sixty feet or so Tom stopped the vertical screws, and turned the full power of his engines on to the horizontal propellers, giving to the planes just sufficient inclination to counteract the force of gravity.

"Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Greatorex, as he watched the easy flight.

"First-rate! There's a _fortune_ in that, skipper," he said to Captain Bodgers at his side.

"Maybe," said the Captain reflectively. He was a man of few words.

"Rather stay on deck, eh?"

"Well, you can swim in water, sir."

"Exactly. But how far is the fellow going? It's getting dark, and he'll be out of sight directly. By the way, Bodgers, there's no law about showing lamps on an airship. But there will be-there _will_ be. Ah! here he comes-at a spanking pace, too. He'll overtake us in no time, going dead slow as we are."

In less than a minute the airship had come within a little distance astern of the yacht.

"Hallo!" came a voice from the air.

"Are you there?" answered Mr. Greatorex, from force of habit at the telephone.

"Who are you?" came the response. "I say, Mr. Greatorex, pick up that boat and go full speed ahead. She's going beautifully; the oiling she's had has done her no end of good."

"All right. Aren't you coming _down_? It's getting _dark_; I can hardly _see_ you."

"Not just yet. She goes smoother than the yacht, and it's beautifully fresh up here. I can tell your whereabouts by your lights."

"All right. _Don't get lost!_"

Tom laughed. He laughed again when, from his elevated position, he saw that though the boat had been hoisted on board, four men had been told off to stand by the davits in order to lower it again at the first sign of mishap.

The yacht was sent full speed ahead. She could easily do her eighteen knots, but was no match in speed for the airship, which circled round and round her.

"She beats us hollow," said Mr. Mumford to M'Cracken, as they watched the flight from the foot of the companion.

"Ou ay, sir. Yon's a grand invention. It's wonderful."

After about an hour Tom called down that he was going to descend.

"He'd much better stay up now he's there," said Timothy, gloomily.

"He'll smash himself or us-I know he will."

Tom knew that to descend was a delicate operation, to be performed with all caution. As his control over the airship was to a great extent proportionate to its speed, he shouted instructions to keep the yacht going under full steam. Coming up astern, he so adjusted his own speed as to overtake the yacht very slowly. When the airship was level with the stern, two men on board caught a cable hanging loose from the car.

Then Tom gradually reduced the speed of the horizontal propellers, and started the vertical screws at half speed, keeping one hand all the time on the lever that adjusted the angles of the planes. He handled his appliances so dexterously that the airship, guided by the rope, sank steadily and accurately to the deck. Buffers of india rubber were slipped under her bottom to break the slight jar that must be inevitable when she touched the platform. Then Tom stepped out.

"Capital!" cried Mr. Greatorex, slapping him on the back. "This is going to turn out _all right_, my boy. What does it _feel_ like, being up there?"

"Like a fish out of water, I should think," said Tom, laughing. "But I thought what a helpless thing a man-of-war would be if she had to tackle an airship. I could choose my own alt.i.tude, and drop explosives on her deck and blow her to smithereens, and there's no gun that I know of that could make an effective reply. They'd have to invent a rocket apparatus for shying melinite sh.e.l.ls aloft."

"Well, let's hope that it'll never come to that. Ours is a _cooling_ apparatus-don't you forget it!"

Tom was so well pleased with his first sea trial that day had scarcely dawned before he was again aloft. This time he took Timothy with him. He needed some a.s.sistance in attending to the mechanism, and now that a first ascent had been made without mishap, the man was no longer so nervous about it.

The airship had not been up more than half an hour, however, when Tom signalled to the yacht that he saw a vessel on the horizon.

"Come down _at once_!" roared Mr. Greatorex through a megaphone.

Tom descended, somewhat unwillingly. Nothing would have pleased him better than to steer directly for the vessel, and see what effect was produced on board by the sight of this strange bird of pa.s.sage hovering above the tops. But clearly Mr. Greatorex was right, and Tom lowered the machine deftly to the deck. As the ship was heading straight for the yacht, the aeroplane was covered with tarpaulin.

The vessel turned out to be a cruiser flying the French colours. The captain spoke the yacht, and asked whether anything had been seen from its deck of an extraordinary object that appeared to have been moving through the air.

"Answer him, Tom. I'm no good at French."

"We did see something, monsieur le capitaine," he said, "Do you know whether Monsieur Santos-Dumont is trying his thirty-third airship?"

"I am not aware, monsieur. It may be. I saw the object very indistinctly. It suddenly disappeared."

"Ah! I was always afraid that Monsieur Santos-Dumont would meet his death. You French, monsieur, are such adventurous spirits! When you reach Brest perhaps you will inquire whether he has recently made an ascent."

"I will certainly do so, monsieur."

The vessels were now out of speaking distance. Tom explained to Mr.

Greatorex what he had said.

"Bravo! What with my cooling apparatus and your cool cheek I think we are keeping our secret pretty well, Tom."

In order to escape further observation from pa.s.sing vessels Mr.

Greatorex had the yacht's course set considerably westward of the usual track. It was consequently another couple of days before she came into the lat.i.tude of Rabat, the port for which she was making. Her head was turned eastward in the direction of the coast of Morocco, and, there being no vessels in sight, Tom again made an ascent, Timothy accompanying him.

The coastline gradually came into view. From an alt.i.tude of more than a hundred feet Tom saw, between him and the coast, a number of rocky islets. Here and there the varying tints of the water indicated shoals of sunken rocks.

"Know the coast?" he called down to Captain Bodgers.

"Ay, ay, sir," said the captain.

"There are no end of shoals."

"Know 'em all, sir; have a care you don't strike one."

Captain Bodgers laughed uproariously at his little joke, and Tom, circling round the yacht, set the aeroplane at full speed towards the coast. He was a considerable distance ahead when Timothy suddenly called his attention to an object projecting above the sea-level, close to one of the rocky islets that dotted the intervening s.p.a.ce. It might have escaped their attention altogether but for a certain movement Tim fancied he discerned in it. As they drew nearer, they discovered that what Tim had thought to be a single object was in reality two, which appeared to be the broken-off stumps of two masts. Taking his field-gla.s.ses in one hand-the other always grasping the steering wheel-Tom lifted them to his eyes, got the focus, and made out that the objects were not stumps after all, but the tops of masts, and that two figures were clinging to them, one to each.

Tom had no doubt that the airship was approaching the scene of a wreck, and that the two men were in distress and danger. Steering immediately for the yacht, he came within hailing distance and through his megaphone announced his discovery.

"We'll go to the rescue, _of course_," shouted Mr. Greatorex in reply.

The wreck was as yet invisible from the deck, but it was arranged that the yacht should stand in as close as possible, and then send a boat to bring off the survivors. Meanwhile Tom, setting his engine at full speed, dashed on in the direction of the submerged vessel.